The RCEF Blog 博客

RCEF provides an egg a day for students at Xiaochao Primary School in rural Yongji, Shanxi Province. Another non-profit, the Rural Education Action Project, has been studying the consequences of malnutrition in rural primary school students and is also evaluating the “egg a day” project in Shaanxi Province. I wonder if their research and policy briefs helped to attract authority’s attention to the problems.

From China Radio International on March 28, 2011:

Authorities of China’s education, finance, and health sectors are working together to push forward the improvement of nutrition for students across the country, especially in rural areas of western China, an education official said Monday.

They are working on guidelines to push local authorities to pay more attention to the nutrition of students, Xu Mei, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education, told a press conference.

Due to efforts from the central and local governments, the overall nutrition conditions of primary and junior middle school students have improved much, but it is still a “grave challenge” in underdeveloped rural areas, Xu said.

Some boarding schools have no dining halls, plus students’ poor financial background all called for more attention from local authorities to improving nutrition of students, she said.

In China, the central government pays textbooks of primary and junior middle school students who are from poor families, while the local government offers food subsidies to those poor students living and studying at boarding schools.

Starting from autumn last year, a primary student from a poor background could receive an annual food subsidy of 750 yuan (around 114 U.S. dollars), and a junior middle school student could receive 1,000 yuan per year, Xu said.

Also, since 2007 China has initiated a national project to renovate buildings at junior middle schools in rural regions in the country’s central and western parts.

Of the total 12 billion yuan invested in the project by central government, a quarter is arranged for the renovation of dining halls.

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Sometimes people assume RCEF promotes “American-style” education in China. However, the kind of education RCEF promotes–relevant to students’ lives, connecting of skills and knowledge to solving real world problems–is not the norm in any country. The below editorial from the New York Times describes a successful case of U.S. high school students picking the topics they want to study and thereby renewing their passion for learning. The author says this should be practiced more in the United States where the “current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.”

China has a rich history of educators who connect studying to answering real world problems.  As RCEF Research & Development Director Sara Lam writes in a RCEF Teaching Book to be published this year, “Tao Xingzhi, China’s most influential modern educator….advocated making the whole of society a school in which students could learn how to participate in and transform their communities. These were not just lofty ideals. Tao was very successful at implementing these ideas in his rural schools until his work was disrupted by the Japanese invasion, and started a college for teachers based on this approach which is still running today.”

In short, RCEF’s educational philosophy isn’t from any one country–the principles are universal.

March 14, 2011
Let Kids Rule the School
By SUSAN ENGEL

New Marlborough, Mass.

IN a speech last week, President Obama said it was unacceptable that “as many as a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.” But our current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.

We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development. Read the rest of this post

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Sometimes people assume RCEF promotes “American-style” education in China. However, the kind of education RCEF promotes–relevant to students’ lives, connecting of skills and knowledge to solving real world problems–is not the norm in any country. The below editorial from the New York Times describes a successful case of U.S. high school students picking the topics they want to study and thereby renewing their passion for learning. The author says this should be practiced more in the United States where the “current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.”

China has a rich history of educators who connect studying to answering real world problems.  As RCEF Research & Development Director Sara Lam writes in a RCEF Teaching Book to be published this year, “Tao Xingzhi, China’s most influential modern educator….advocated making the whole of society a school in which students could learn how to participate in and transform their communities. These were not just lofty ideals. Tao was very successful at implementing these ideas in his rural schools until his work was disrupted by the Japanese invasion, and started a college for teachers based on this approach which is still running today.”

In short, RCEF’s educational philosophy isn’t from any one country–the principles are universal.

March 14, 2011
Let Kids Rule the School
By SUSAN ENGEL

New Marlborough, Mass.

IN a speech last week, President Obama said it was unacceptable that “as many as a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.” But our current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.

We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development. Read the rest of this post

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Sometimes people assume RCEF promotes “American-style” education in China. However, the kind of education RCEF promotes–relevant to students’ lives, connecting of skills and knowledge to solving real world problems–is not the norm in any country. The below editorial from the New York Times describes a successful case of U.S. high school students picking the topics they want to study and thereby renewing their passion for learning. The author says this should be practiced more in the United States where the “current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.”

China actually has a rich history of educators who connect studying to answering real world problems.  As RCEF Research & Development Director Sara Lam writes in a RCEF Teaching Book to be published this year, “Tao Xingzhi, China’s most influential modern educator….advocated making the whole of society a school in which students could learn how to participate in and transform their communities. These were not just lofty ideals. Tao was very successful at implementing these ideas in his rural schools until his work was disrupted by the Japanese invasion, and started a college for teachers based on this approach which is still running today.”

In short, RCEF’s educational philosophy isn’t from any one country–the principles are universal.

March 14, 2011
Let Kids Rule the School
By SUSAN ENGEL

New Marlborough, Mass.

IN a speech last week, President Obama said it was unacceptable that “as many as a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.” But our current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.

We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development. Read the rest of this post

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Sometimes people assume RCEF promotes “American-style” education in China. However, the kind of education RCEF promotes–relevant to students’ lives, connecting of skills and knowledge to solving real world problems–is not the norm in any country. The below editorial from the New York Times describes a successful case of U.S. high school students picking the topics they want to study and thereby renewing their passion for learning. The author says this should be practiced more in the United States where the “current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.”

China actually has a rich history of educators who connect studying to answering real world problems.  As RCEF Research & Development Director Sara Lam writes in a RCEF Teaching Book to be published this year, “Tao Xingzhi, China’s most influential modern educator….advocated making the whole of society a school in which students could learn how to participate in and transform their communities. These were not just lofty ideals. Tao was very successful at implementing these ideas in his rural schools until his work was disrupted by the Japanese invasion, and started a college for teachers based on this approach which is still running today.”

In short, RCEF’s educational philosophy isn’t from any one country–it’s universal

March 14, 2011
Let Kids Rule the School
By SUSAN ENGEL

New Marlborough, Mass.

IN a speech last week, President Obama said it was unacceptable that “as many as a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.” But our current educational approach doesn’t just fail to prepare teenagers for graduation or for college academics; it fails to prepare them, in a profound way, for adult life.

We want young people to become independent and capable, yet we structure their days to the minute and give them few opportunities to do anything but answer multiple-choice questions, follow instructions and memorize information. We cast social interaction as an impediment to learning, yet all evidence points to the huge role it plays in their psychological development.

That’s why we need to rethink the very nature of high school itself.

I recently followed a group of eight public high school students, aged 15 to 17, in western Massachusetts as they designed and ran their own school within a school. They represented the usual range: two were close to dropping out before they started the project, while others were honors students. They named their school the Independent Project.

Their guidance counselor was their adviser, consulting with them when the group flagged in energy or encountered an obstacle. Though they sought advice from English, math and science teachers, they were responsible for monitoring one another’s work and giving one another feedback. There were no grades, but at the end of the semester, the students wrote evaluations of their classmates.

The students also designed their own curriculum, deciding to split their September-to-January term into two halves.

During the first half, they formulated and then answered questions about the natural and social world, including “Are the plant cells at the bottom of a nearby mountain different than those at the top of the mountain?” and “Why we do we cry?” They not only critiqued one another’s queries, but also the answers they came up with. Along the way, they acquired essential tools of inquiry, like how to devise good methods for gathering various kinds of data.

During the second half, the group practiced what they called “the literary and mathematical arts.” They chose eight novels — including works by Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner and Oscar Wilde — to read in eight weeks. That is more than the school’s A.P. English class reads in an entire year.

Meanwhile, each of them focused on specific mathematical topics, from quadratic equations to the numbers behind poker. They sought the help of full-time math teachers, consulted books and online sources and, whenever possible, taught one another.

They also each undertook an “individual endeavor,” learning to play the piano or to cook, writing a novel or making a podcast about domestic violence. At the end of the term, they performed these new skills in front of the entire student body and faculty.

Finally, they embarked on a collective endeavor, which they agreed had to have social significance. Because they felt the whole experience had been so life-changing, they ended up making a film showing how other students could start and run their own schools.

The results of their experiment have been transformative. An Independence Project student who had once considered dropping out of school found he couldn’t bear to stop focusing on his current history question but didn’t want to miss out on exploring a new one. When he asked the group if it would be O.K. to pursue both, another student answered, “Yeah, I think that’s what they call learning.”

One student who had failed all of his previous math courses spent three weeks teaching the others about probability. Another said: “I did well before. But I had forgotten what I actually like doing.” They have all returned to the conventional curriculum and are doing well. Two of the seniors are applying to highly selective liberal arts colleges.

The students in the Independent Project are remarkable but not because they are exceptionally motivated or unusually talented. They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together. In such a setting, school capitalizes on rather than thwarts the intensity and engagement that teenagers usually reserve for sports, protest or friendship.

Schools everywhere could initiate an Independent Project. All it takes are serious, committed students and a supportive faculty. These projects might not be exactly alike: students might apportion their time differently, or add another discipline to the mix. But if the Independent Project students are any indication, participants will end up more accomplished, more engaged and more knowledgeable than they would have been taking regular courses.

We have tried making the school day longer and blanketing students with standardized tests. But perhaps children don’t need another reform imposed on them. Instead, they need to be the authors of their own education.

Susan Engel is the author of “Red Flags or Red Herrings: Predicting Who Your Child Will Become.”

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RCEF students in rural Shanxi Province practice expressing their own opinions and listening to others in this book discussion circle.

RCEF strives to cultivate 5 life skills and attitudes in rural Chinese children: self-confidence, communication and leadership skills, independent thinking, empathy, and social responsibility. These sound a lot like the 5 skill areas promoted by “Social Emotional Learning (SEL)”, which you can read more about in Jay Mathew’s Washington Post education blog (below) and the website of CASEL, a non-profit organization which promotes SEL in the United States. CASEL highlights some of the “best programs” backed by at least one well-designed evaluation and that offer more follow-up to teachers beyond an initial training. Mathews reports below that a study of a broad range of such programs found that classroom-based programs where an individual teacher was in control of implementation, fared the best. This is heartening because in China, where it’s difficult if not often impossible to get school-wide–much less district- or society-wide–support for SEL, our current hopes lie with motivated individual teachers and their actions in their own classrooms.

Making students smarter AND better
By Jay Mathews

One of the great failures of high schools, my favorite subject, is the lack of effective training in productive behaviors and attitudes, such as cooperating, being on time, making eye contact, speaking persuasively, offering suggestions and focusing on tasks.

Many educators are trying to develop programs that teach these traits. Some call this character education, which has been around for decades. A few schools and school systems have made progress. Most have not.

Now a study offers renewed hope. An approach called social and emotional learning (SEL), which trains students to think and act in positive ways, can make a significance difference in school achievement, according to this research. The next step will be to see if it has the same effect on life and work after graduation. Read the rest of this post

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RCEF strives to cultivate 5 life skills and attitudes in rural Chinese children: self-confidence, communication and leadership skills, independent thinking, empathy, and social responsibility. These sound a lot like the 5 skill areas promoted by “Social Emotional Learning (SEL)”, which you can read more about in Jay Mathew’s Washington Post education blog (below) and the website of CASEL, a non-profit organization which promotes SEL in the United States. CASEL highlights some of the “best programs” backed by at least one well-designed evaluation and that offer more follow-up to teachers beyond an initial training. Mathews reports below that a study of a broad range of such programs found that classroom-based programs where an individual teacher was in control of implementation, fared the best. This is heartening because in China, where it’s difficult if not often impossible to get school-wide–much less district- or society-wide–support for SEL, our current hopes lie with motivated individual teachers and their actions in their own classrooms.

Making students smarter AND better
By Jay Mathews

One of the great failures of high schools, my favorite subject, is the lack of effective training in productive behaviors and attitudes, such as cooperating, being on time, making eye contact, speaking persuasively, offering suggestions and focusing on tasks.

Many educators are trying to develop programs that teach these traits. Some call this character education, which has been around for decades. A few schools and school systems have made progress. Most have not.

Now a study offers renewed hope. An approach called social and emotional learning (SEL), which trains students to think and act in positive ways, can make a significance difference in school achievement, according to this research. The next step will be to see if it has the same effect on life and work after graduation.

I saw a piece by Sarah D. Sparks in Education Week and looked up the report, “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions,” by Joseph A. Durlak and Kriston B. Schellinger of Loyola University Chicago and Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki and Rebecca D. Taylor of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

It is in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development.

Meta-analysis means research that examines many small studies and tries to see they point in the direction of a larger point if taken together. The researchers found that students in social and emotional learning classes improved by 11 percentile points in classroom grade and test scores compared to similar students not in such programs.

That was a statistically significant gain, the study said. It concluded that students in the courses also did better than similar students on important measures of personal traits. These included greater social skills, less emotional distress and better attitudes, less misbehavior indicated by suspensions and bullying and more frequent positive behavior such as cooperation and helping other students. The effects continued at least six months after the programs ended, according to the studies.

The study said “SEL programs are successful at all educational levels (elementary, middle and high school) and in urban, suburban, and rural schools, although they have been studied least often in high schools and in rural areas.”

Why should training in behavior and attitudes affect academic achievement? The authors offered several explanations. “Students who are more self-aware and confident about their learning capacities try harder and persist in the face of challenges,” they said. “Students who set high academic goals, have self-discipline, motivate themselves, manage their stress and organize their approach to work learn more and get better grades.”

There was something noteworthy in the later pages of the report about the programs with the best results. Prominent advocates of this kind of training were startled last fall when the Institute of Education Sciences reported that seven of the most popular character education programs did not produce significant social or academic gains. The Child Development report found similarly disappointing results from the broad-ranged programs that tried to encourage better behavior and attitudes through participation by all school staffers and parents.

Results were better from smaller programs conducted by just classroom teachers. Those simpler programs produced improvements in academics and all five social measures. The more comprehensive programs showed no significant gains in social-emotional skills and positive social behavior. “More complicated and extensive programs are likely to encounter problems in implementation,” the study said.

So the message is: if you are an energetic teacher who wants to encourage better behavior using the SEL model, go for it. You can get good results during the months or years that your school or district tries to launch something grander.

The research team, led by Durlak, looked at 213 school-based studies. The schools involved had 270,034 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. About half of the studies had random selection of students for the study group and the control group, making their results less likely to be the result of different characteristics of the two groups.

The authors reported initial positive findings in 2007 but then reanalyzed their work after removing data from studies of bullying behavior—a hot topic these days. They confined the results in this report to programs that were focused only on behavior, not academics, and took place during the school day. The most effective programs in that smaller group were those that had a carefully designed step-by-step sequence, included active learning like role-playing, sufficient time to focus on each lesson and explicit learning goals, the authors said.

Just because SEL approach works does not mean many school districts are using it, the authors conclude. In my experience schools adopt, or fail to adopt, programs for many reasons—finances, politics, personalities, whim—that have little to do with how much they help children.

That suggests it might be time to require that policymakers themselves undergo SEL training. With more positive attitudes at the top, we might get somewhere.

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A student used leaves and other plant material to create animals and stories.

It’s no surprise to RCEF that Chinese children can be incredibly creative! Many past examples of the creativity of our rural students spring to mind–the artwork of Xie Laoshi’s students (see photo at right), the song and dance created by Guan Ai School’s “Little Librarians”, fifth-grader Ren Chao who turned scrap materials into all kinds of wallets, cars, and boats. The article below, originally from the Shanghai Daily, reminds us that it’s often parents and the formal education system that obstruct the development of children’s natural creativity.

Creativity, tiger moms and Dibidogs

BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhuanet) — Finland is known for relaxed parenting and education, yet its students are famous for academic superiority and are known for creativity. Liang Yiwen talks to a Finnish expert.

Finland and Shanghai are poles apart when it comes to education and parenting, yet students from both places top the academic charts – and in the latest international ranking Shanghai was No. 1 in math, reading and science.

Finland, after being No. 1 for a decade, is now No. 3 behind South Korea, though all scores are close on the testing by PISA, the Program of International Student Assessment.

The high scores are achieved in countries with very different parenting and education systems. Finland is known for relaxed education that emphasizes individuality, informality and love of learning; China and much of East Asia are known for rigorous, test-oriented education, the importance of high scores and strict, “tiger mother” parenting. Children bear a heavy burden and high expectations. Read the rest of this post

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